If you're curious about Apple to Office Online and Google Docs, but don't own an Apple product, you're in luck. The company is now allowing anyone to sign up for a beta version of iWork for iCloud without requiring you to own an Apple device.
Apple's beta.icloud.com website displays a message saying that anyone can sign up and use the Pages, Numbers, and Keynote apps from iCloud. You just have to go through a sign-up process to create a new Apple ID, and you're good to go. You'll also get 1GB of iCloud storage. (Wow!)
In the past, simply having an Apple ID (like for iTunes) wasn't enough to access iCloud. You had to set up iCloud on an Apple device first. If you try to access the regular Apple website (not the beta) with the Apple ID you use for iTunes only, the website will ask you to have an Apple device and set up iCloud on it
If you try to use the same login details on the beta website, you will be asked to verify your account. Once you enter the verification code that will be sent to your email, you will be able to access iCloud from the beta website without any problem. And so welcome to Pages on Windows:
However, you can't just sign up for iCloud on the Beta website and expect to have permanent access to the regular iCloud website. Even after signing up through the beta, the regular iCloud website will still block you from signing in, giving you a "sign in error.".
It seems that Apple is becoming more lenient about its products being used on non-Apple devices. Recently released reports have mentioned an upcoming beta music subscription service for Android
Does this move make sense? Maintaining the requirement that native software connect through Apple hardware makes sense from an optimization perspective, but it reduces the widespread use of iCloud on the web. Opening up the cloud software to other platforms helps bring more people to Apple's system, which can ultimately only be beneficial for the company.
